relative zero
by nullityCoder
Summary: Tokyo is a cold place, but temperature is a relative thing.


I wrote this for my friend Shannon, and it was originally posted on the AO3!

* * *

Tokyo was a cold place, but Kagami was still lucky. Lucky that they had gone on that trip to a public bath at the beginning of December. Lucky that Kuroko had mailed him, a week later, to ask if he wanted to visit the same public bath, again.

Lucky that it had continued.

They had adapted into this strange sort of routine, going to the same bath at the same time, each week, during the winter. It was good. It was probably the only thing that got Kagami out of the house besides the threat of Coach's wrath or failing out of school, considering that Kagami still hadn't quite gotten used to the Tokyo weather, compared to California.

And that would probably take years.

But this routine kept going, despite how cold it was. They would go, and they would sometimes talk, but mostly they just washed each other. And Kagami never thought much of it. He liked how it felt. All of it— the way that Kuroko's hands felt on his back, in his hair, on his face. And more than just Kuroko, but also the way the water felt, and the steam, and simply not having to be cold.

"Kagami-kun, have you ever thought about ice skating?"

Kagami leaned back a little into Kuroko's fingers. It was kind of out of nowhere, and honestly it felt more like an assumption than anything. Ice skating was a very American sort of sport, after all, and it was a winter sport, too. But what he was mostly thinking of was this one time he had gone ice skating, back in LA, with Tatsuya and Alex. Tatsuya had brought a basketball with them, and had challenged Kagami to something of a match on the ice— it had been late in the day, or just a slow day, or no one went ice skating in Los Angeles, maybe— and Kagami had lost his balance. He had lost his balance and Alex had laughed and kissed him on the forehead and told him that it would all be okay, but maybe they shouldn't try to do something like this anymore. He almost winced, but he didn't want Kuroko to see that, even now.

"Nah, I've never been."

Kuroko was silent, for several moments, working his fingers further into Kagami's back, helping him to relax, just a little bit more.

"I'd like to go, sometime, before it gets warm again."

"But we could go to an indoor rink, couldn't we?" Never mind that that was really the only thing Kagami had ever known.

"Kagami-kun." His fingers worked into him a little harder, a little less gently than he had been, before. "It isn't the same, to go outside."

"B- but—"

"Please."

Kagami couldn't see Kuroko's expression but he could sort of imagine what it was. He could imagine those wide, "innocent" eyes, at least in theory (although Kagami knew better, honestly anyone who had spent more than five minutes with him probably knew better), boring into his back, and begging him to agree because you would have to be a _monster_ to deny him.

This went on for what felt like forever, as Kuroko kept his steady massage of Kagami's back.

"Fine."

And again, even though he wasn't looking at him, he could feel Kuroko's smile against his back.

* * *

They had agreed to go the rink the next day, and it wasn't really a good day to be out. The forecast had said it would be overcast, and that had turned out to be annoyingly true. Kagami had almost mailed Kuroko again, asking him to cancel, asking him to rearrange it for another day, when the weather was better or when it was just a little more mild? But then he remembered, he remembered just how reproachful Kuroko would look if he had done that.

So he had gone.

Kuroko smiled up at him when he ran up to him at the train station.

"It shouldn't be busy today."

And that was what buzzed around in Kagami's head as he sat next to him on the subway as they took the short trip over to the park. That this maybe, somehow, would be a little bit like what they had done, every week. In the fact that it was simultaneously public and private, in the fact that it was—

"Kagami-kun." And there it was, a gentle touch on his shoulder, just the tiniest prod, and that train of thought was gone. "We're here."

And once they were off the train, and out in the cold Tokyo air, Kagami had another moment where he almost wanted to leave again, go back home and relax under his makeshift kotatsu (which was really just a blanket and a table and a space heater).

But then he looked toward Kuroko and there it was, that smile again, small but warm, and it didn't really matter anymore.

Kuroko had been right. The rink was almost empty— a few couples, and one or two wannabe athletes, closer to the center. That was good, for Kagami anyways. That meant that he didn't have to worry about other people watching him, or Kuroko, or him and Kuroko together. Even if no one else would have noticed Kuroko, anyways.

They both stood there, at the edge of the rink, and it felt like an hour had passed (really, maybe a minute), when Kuroko wrapped his fingers around Kagami's, and without looking at him, he said:

"We should put on skates, now, I think."

Kagami just nodded. "Yeah. It'll get busier later..."

Kuroko turned to him, then. "Will you be alright? Since you haven't skated before."

Kagami paused. _Right_. That's what he'd said. And really, it had been so long that it wasn't a lie, exactly, anymore.

"You can teach me."

It took a second, maybe, for those words to reach Kuroko, but when they did, that little smile appeared again. And even if the temperature hadn't changed, Tokyo felt a little bit warmer.


End file.
